Star Trek: Discovery’s Best Episode Was Rewritten At The Last Minute

Season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery looks like it’s going to change gears after the wartime setting of the first outing. Though the show’s debut run was received pretty well, its focus on non-traditional Trek fare certainly alienated some fans, which is possibly why the sophomore effort sounds like it’ll travel to some slightly more familiar territory.

Before we get there though, let’s revisit one of Discovery‘s best episodes yet, “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad.” Inventive and exhilarating, it saw Rainn Wilson return as Harry Mudd, out for revenge on Captain Gabriel Lorca for leaving him behind on the Klingon prison ship a few episodes prior. Using a device that allowed him to loop time, the seventh installment of the first season took on an Edge of Tomorrow vibe as it had the crew reliving the same situation over and over again, forcing them to learn and improve so that they can ultimate stop Mudd from destroying their ship.

Again, it’s probably the show’s best episode to date and as such, you may be surprised to learn that it was actually rewritten at the last minute. Wilson revealed as much during a Star Trek Las Vegas panel, where he said that he arrived on set one day to learn that most of the script he’d been working with had been scrapped.

“It was pretty early on in the series and there had been some writer turnover,” the actor said (via Trek Movie). “They were really finding their sea legs as a series. So, a lot of it was scrapped and rewritten at the last minute, or the three or four days before we started shooting, there was a mammoth rewrite on that Mudd stuff.”

Still, The Office star had nothing but praise for the writers on Discovery, pointing out one in particular who really helped him.

“I just want to give a shout-out to a very special writer on the current staff named Ted Sullivan,” Wilson said. “He is really something. He flew in from LA and he really helped me a lot, with the character and with the plotting. The directors were great as well, but he is a great resource in the Star Trek universe. I really enjoyed working with him. I think he really got Harry Mudd’s voice and he is a great asset to that writer’s room.”

Star Trek: Discovery season 2 isn’t expected to take flight until the early stages of 2019, and though we don’t yet know how Mudd will be involved, fans can at least take solace in the fact that he’ll will be receiving his own Star Trek: Short Treks, a collection of character-focused mini-episodes tied into Discovery. Beyond that, we can’t say for certain what’s in store for Harry, but we can only hope that we’ll be seeing a lot more of him.